An electrical connector may include a co-planar wave guide structure. A coplanar waveguide structure may be a structure in which ground conductors are within a plane defined by conductors of the structure. That is, some ground and signal conductors within the connector may be coplanar. A cross section of contacts as they would appear arranged in a coplanar wave guide structure is depicted in FIG. 1. Ground conductors G1, G2 may be located adjacent to a single-ended signal conductor S. In such an arrangement, the voltage on the ground G1 may be identical to the voltage on the ground G2 at the same point along the length of the conductors. That is, there may be no potential difference between the ground conductor G1 and the ground conductor G2. Thus, if a voltage is applied to the signal conductor S, its potential difference with reference to G1 may be the same as its potential difference with reference to G2 at any point along its length.
If the conductors bend within a connector, such as in a right-angle connector, the voltages on the ground conductors G1, G2 may become out of sync with respect to one another. With reference to FIG. 2, for example, the voltages of the ground conductors G1, G2 at location A may be identical. At location B, where the contacts bend, however, the voltages of the ground conductors G1, G2 may be different. This may cause electrical current in the ground conductors G1, G2 that are not transverse electro-magnetic currents. Such electric currents may cause a “slot-line mode” traveling along a “slot” SL or space between the signal conductor S and one or both of the ground conductors G1, G2. The slot line mode may decrease the energy of the transverse electro-magnetic mode at certain frequencies, and result in increasing the insertion loss of the transverse electro-magnetic mode at the certain frequencies. Additionally, coupling of the signals of the conductor S to the ground conductor G1 that has the larger physical length compared to the ground conductor G2 may also cause an increase in insertion loss.